


Not Scott

by canadiancop



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 18:09:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6481417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canadiancop/pseuds/canadiancop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cosima gets drunk and comes home from a party THINKING she's sneaking in through Scott's window, when really she's broken into someone else's house entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Another Friday night, another party for Cosima to get totally shit-faced at. For the past two months her weekend schedule had been go to a party, get totally and completely drunk, make out with some guy for a while, get fed up with said guy and leave, walk about a block to Scott’s neighbourhood, climb over the fence, walk in through the backdoor, and pass out on his couch. Then, in the morning, after his mom had left for work, Scott would come down to the basement, give Cosima aspirin, and drive her home. The system worked quite well, if Cosima said so herself.

That is, until, Friday, February twentieth. Or, if you were being technical, which Cosima usually was, the morning of Saturday the twenty-first.

Her weekend started out normally enough. She’d gotten her usual ride to a random party from Sarah Manning, (Cosima had agreed to do Sarah’s science homework every day until graduation, and in return Sarah had guaranteed her a ride to every cool party that she attended.) laughed at the same lame pickup lines from sophomore boys who had just barely gotten invited, drank the same type of beers, and even stumbled out of the party at about the same time.

At exactly 11:35 on Friday the twentieth, Cosima started to get bored with the party; so, beer still in hand, she shuffled out the door and began walking the approximate block to Scott’s neighbourhood. She felt a little different walking back this time, though. Everything was so much fuzzier than it usually was. She didn’t feel lightheaded and giggly like she usually did after drinking. Instead, she felt tired. She was really, really tired, now that she thought about it. It felt like she was dragging a ten pound weight along with her, and with every step she took the weight just got heavier and heavier. But somehow, she also felt extremely light. Like she was floating, almost. Her eyelids were sinking lower and lower, and she absentmindedly wondered if maybe someone had slipped something in her drink.

No, no of course not. I watched my drink carefully, didn’t I? She paused to think about it. Yeah, of course I did. What kind of idiot would I have to be to leave it unattended? Maybe I’m just an incredible lightweight. She shook her head and kept walking.

By the time she spotted Scott’s house, she felt about ready to pass out. She was so sleepy that barely even made it over his fence. Rubbing her eyes, she pulled at the glass door. Surprisingly, it didn’t open. She threw her head back and groaned, pulling harder. Maybe it was just stuck or something?

“Scooottt,” she whined, tapping at the window half-heartedly. “Scoooooottt, are you in there?” She stopped tugging on the window for a second when she heard a creaking noise from inside, but after thirty seconds of waiting for more, she decided that it was just the house settling.

By then, Cosima felt ready to drop down on the grass and sleep right then and there, but she knew better. Looking around desperately, she spotted his window.

“Oh, please please please be open,” she pleaded. Making a silent prayer to all the gods she didn’t really believe in, she gave a small tug on the window. The window opened with a woosh, making her laugh with relief.

“Finally.” Cosima pulled herself up to the window and pushed herself through, landing with a thump on the carpeted floor.

Wait - carpet? Scott had wood floors, didn’t he? Eh, it’s not like it really mattered. Cosima wasn’t going to complain about his floors when she was this tired, especially since the new carpeting had saved her from bruises that would have hurt like hell in the morning.

Still on the floor, Cosima dragged herself over to the couch, running into a black and white cat on the way.

Wait - what? A cat? Cosima turned back to look at the cat again. Wasn’t Scott allergic to cats? Cosima shook her head, trying to stop herself from getting distracted. She could focus on why Scott would lie to her about being allergic to one of the most adorable things on the planet tomorrow. Right now, she needed to sleep.

So when she finally managed to get herself up onto the couch, she just went to sleep. Never mind the fact that for some reason he had turned the couch around since last time Cosima had been over, or that it was suddenly a different texture. For now, all Cosima cared about was closing her eyes and being unconscious for the next eight hours.

~

Cosima woke up the next morning to the worst headache she’d ever experienced and sunlight streaming through Scott’s window. (Which wasn’t helping at all.) She groaned, covering her eyes. Didn’t Scott have blinds? Wait, come to think of it, where was Scott? Cosima had never been left to wake up on her own on a Saturday morning in Scott’s basement. He meant well, but he always woke her up with his deafening stomps down the stairs. But now, Cosima didn’t hear any stomping.

She sat up to look around, only to notice an awful pounding in her head every time she tried to move. She plopped herself back down onto the couch, closing her eyes. She felt terrible. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a hangover this bad. What did she drink at the party last night? She couldn’t remember anything other than the usual, three to four bottles of beer and maybe a shot of whiskey if she was feeling adventurous, and she was pretty sure that last night she wasn’t. But really, she couldn’t remember much of anything. She remembered getting a ride from Sarah, and getting her first bottle of beer, but she couldn’t recall much else. Maybe she’d just had a lot more beer than she had expected to?

Turning her head from left to right, she saw that Scott had brought her some aspirin and a bottle of water.

Good ol’ Scott. Always being so nice. She grabbed the aspirin and threw it in her mouth, gulping the water to wash it down. Slowly, she sat up to see the basement. It looked…. different. Not like Scott had remodelled or something, but like it was a different room altogether. The basic structure was the same. The bathroom was to the left, the mirror placed on the wall directly adjacent to the couch, and the back room right behind where she was sitting on the couch. But it wasn’t Scott’s basement. Where the hell was she?

She pushed herself off of the couch, looking around. The walls were bare, but it didn’t seem like they were bare by choice. A bookshelf full of textbooks and a coffee table in the center of the room were the only pieces of furniture, besides the couch she was sitting on, obvs.

Standing up, she strode over to the bookshelf, examining the many textbooks sitting on it. Evolutionary Development, A Study In Immunology, and a metric fuckload of other science books. Cosima was starting to think that maybe this was Scott’s basement after all, what with the nerdy science books everywhere. Maybe he really had just redecorated?

“Ah, excuse me?” A voice sounded from behind Cosima, startling her. She whipped her head around to look, only to see a tall blonde girl looking at her with a mixture of fear and concern.

Cosima gasped. You’re not Scott, she thought. The girl tilted her head to the side, causing blonde curls to fall onto her face and Cosima to forget what she was going to say.

Definitely not Scott.


	2. Chapter 2

Cosima just stared at the girl; unable to move or do anything else that would make the situation less awkward.

“Hello, uh, I was just wondering who you are? If that’s not rude, I’m sorry,” the girl said, a French accent touching her words. Cosima would’ve smiled at the awkward politeness of the girl if she weren’t feeling so damn guilty. She had snuck into this girl’s house! To be fair though, it was an accident.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” Cosima started, trying to make her way over to the girl but somehow tripping over her own feet and falling to the ground. “Fuck! Oh! I mean, uhm, oh, I don’t know, fuck I said fuck. Oh, fuck that’s three times I’ve said it! Four, I just, oh fuck.” Finally, Cosima clapped her hand over her mouth to stop herself from blurting out any more curses. From behind her hands, she uttered out, “Sorry about that.”

The girl looked at Cosima with her eyes wide, reminding Cosima very much of a deer caught in headlights. She started to open her mouth to apologise for accidentally breaking in to her house and tell the girl that she would be on her way out, when the girl broke out into a fit of giggles.

“Uhm, what?“ Cosima asked. “Usually when I accidentally break into people’s houses they don’t laugh about it. Not that I usually-” Cosima sighed. “Never mind.”

The girl grinned this crinkly-eyed smile at Cosima, looking as if she’d never had a better moment in her life.

“So, uh can we start this over?”

The girl nodded.

“Well, I’m Cosima,” she said, waving her arms around her, trying to explain with her motions what she couldn’t with her words. “I didn’t really mean to crash on your couch, like, well, I did crash on your couch, but you know, it was accident. See my friend, Scott, lives around here and I was totally drunk or something, I don’t actually know, I felt really weird, like I don’t even remember what happened last night, but anyway I was just completely out of it and I kinda sorta thought your place was Scott’s? I did wonder when he got a cat, though, especially seeing as he’s allergic.” She paused to take a breath and look back up at the girl. She was staring at her with the strangest expression of interest and amusement.

“Oh, yeah, sorry, I was rambling, wasn’t I? I do that sometimes,” Cosima explained, going red. “Uh, your name?”

The girl cleared her throat. “I’m Delphine,” she said. Cosima tried not to start fangirling over this girl, Delphine’s, accent. She couldn’t afford to freak her out any more than she already had.

“You seem very, ah, how do you say, uh, err… I can’t think of the word in English, but in French it’s ‘mignonne?’ Do you know it?” Delphine asked.

“Uhm, sorry, I took Spanish in school instead of French. Uh, maybe the word you’re looking for is ‘insane?’”

Delphine laughed. “Non, non, Cosima. Not ‘insane.’”

Cosima’s insides twisted at the way Delphine said her name. Instead of saying COS-ima, she said it Co-SIM-a, putting the stress on the second syllable. Was it bad that Cosima found this beyond adorable?

“Uh, mignonne, mignonne, eh,” she paused for another second, desperately grasping for the word.

“Strange? Eccentric? Psychotic? Alarmi-”

“Cute!” she yelled, startling Cosima.

“Jesus fuck, Delphine!” Cosima exclaimed, rubbing her ears. “Well you can definitely be loud.” She shook her head. “Wouldn’t have guessed that.”

Delphine looked down at her feet sheepishly. “I am sorry. I should not have yelled. I just got a little… excited.”

“No, no! Shit,” Cosima said, flailing her arms around her and trying to amend for hurting Delphine’s feelings. “I didn’t mean it like that, honest, I just meant that I wouldn’t have expected you to be loud because you seem like one of those quiet but completely adorable types, I mean-” Cosima stopped. Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. Nononono. Cosima hadn’t said that, had she? No, no, of course not. Of course she hadn’t admitted that she thought this girl, who seemed straight as a freakin’ board, was cute. No. No. She hadn’t said that. Why would she say that? No, of course she hadn’t said that.

Except she had.

Fuck! What the fuck is wrong with you? You’ve only just met this girl, and already you’re telling her how cute she is? What the fuck, man?

“Uh, well,” Cosima started, “I didn’t really mean it like that. Not adorable like, ‘wow that girl is hot,’ but just adorable like, ‘aww, I want to wrap you up in a tortilla and eat you up-’ but, uh, up. Up. Definitely. Up.” She had said ‘up,’ hadn’t she? She smiled nervously at Delphine.

“You’re cute, Cosima.” Delphine smiled back at her, and Cosima found herself getting lost in her eyes.

Damn, is it even possible to have such gorgeous eyes? I mean, they’re balls of colour sitting in your face, but hot damn those eyes are sexy. What colour are they even? Cosima found herself inching towards Delphine, trying to unravel the mysteries in her (Brown? Gold? Hazel? Who fucking knows, man) eyes.

“Uh, Cosima?” Delphine asked, backing up a little.

“Oh!” Cosima said, catching herself getting closer and closer to the blonde. “Shit, no, sorry, I just, um…” Cosima paused, racking her brain for any excuse for her getting so close to Delphine. “I, uh, was just leaving! Yeah, I was leaving. I should probably head home. Thanks for not calling the cops on me, dude.” She smiled and made her way to the back door.

“Cosima, wait!” Delphine called.

“Yeah?”

“Uh, where do you live?” She paused for a second. “Oh, god, no, that sounded bad. I am just wondering because you didn’t go home last night, so maybe your home is far away?”

“No, really that’s okay, it’s only a few miles from here. I can walk.”

Delphine looked absolutely appalled at this idea. “Walk? Walk? You would walk a few miles when I could easily drive you? And besides, you haven’t even had breakfast yet.”

“No! I mean, I couldn’t. You’ve already been so nice to me, like you found me on the couch and your first thought was to get me some aspirin in case I was hungover. I shouldn’t bother you anymore.” Cosima started to walk towards the back door again.

“No,” Delphine said, grabbing Cosima’s hand and pulling her back. “I insist, really. At least let me make you some eggs?”

Cosima really should have just gone home. She should have just walked away and said thank you for not getting her arrested for breaking and entering. But thankfully, that was not how Cosima did things.

“Mmmmmmm…..”

“Please?” Delphine pleaded, making Cosima wonder how it was physically possible to simultaneously be the hottest girl she’d ever seen and a puppy.

“Well I guess eggs couldn’t hurt.”

Delphine grinned, and Cosima thought that her smile could probably cure cancer.

~

By the time Delphine had finished frying the eggs, Cosima was thanking her lucky stars that she hadn’t left. Not only had Delphine been the single most interesting person she’d spoken to in weeks, but those eggs were starting to smell pretty damn good. Cosima’s stomach growled at the thought of food.

“Don’t worry, Cosima, food is on its way!” Delphine said, hearing the rumbling in Cosima’s stomach and scooping the eggs off the pan onto the plate in front of Cosima.

“Good, because I’m fucking starved.”

“Careful, they’re-”

Cosima grabbed her fork and eagerly stuck the eggs in her mouth, jumping up out of her seat and yelling ‘HOT HOT HOT GOD FUCKING DAMMIT HOT HOT HOT’ before spitting her mouthful of eggs back on the plate.

“-hot,” Delphine finished, smiling apologetically. “I’m sorry. I always forget to warn people about that.”

“No, no, it’s okay.” Cosima grabbed her tongue with her fingers and looked down, probably checking for burns. “I ‘thouldn’t haf eatem them ‘o fatht.”

Delphine laughed at her and grabbed her plate from the table. “You dork. Here, I can stick them in the fridge for a minute to cool them down if you want me to.”

Cosima looked up at Delphine. “Are yoo laffing at my mithfortune?”

“No,” Delphine replied, giggling. “I’m laughing at your adorableness, not your misfortune!”

Cosima stopped pulling at her tongue and smiled down at the table. Dammit, this girl was cute.

“Do you think they’re cool enough to eat yet?” she asked, her stomach growling.

“Well, I don’t think so, but your stomach doesn’t seem to care too much.” Delphine walked back over to the fridge and pulled out the plate of scrambled eggs, placing them in front of Cosima. “There you go.”

Cosima immediately dug her fork back into the food, not caring if it wasn’t cool yet. She’d already been burned, hadn’t she? What else could it do?

In two minutes, Delphine saw Cosima scarf down two plates of eggs. By the time she was almost done with her second plate, Delphine was surprised to find that Cosima’s stomach was still growling.

“Merde, Cosima, how much do you eat?”

Cosima shrugged. “I dunno, I’m just constantly eating stuff.” She scooped up the last bite of eggs from her plate and scratched her arm. “It’s not my fault I’m always hungry.”

“Well, one should wonder where you put it all!”

Cosima smiled down at her plate. Was that a compliment? After all, she had just gone to the gym…. Cosima found herself absently flexing the muscles in her arms as she got up to put her plate in the sink.

“So, yeah, I should get going now.”

“Non!” Delphine said, running to the front door and slipping on her shoes. She pulled a sweater over her faded tee grabbed her car keys from a hook on the wall. “I am driving you, remember?”

Cosima grinned. “Of course I remember, Delphine. It’s only been half an hour.”

Dork.

“I’m just making sure you didn’t forget about me,” Delphine said using those puppy dog eyes of hers.

“Of course not,” Cosima replied.

How could I ever forget about you? Cosima thought. She sighed. You’re in some deep shit here, Niehaus. Deep fucking shit.


	3. Chapter 3

Cosima had never really liked cars. Sure, she appreciated that they had been invented so that people didn’t have to walk everywhere, but she never really loved them. She didn’t like how dirty they could get, or how they smelled good at first but then they started to smell like people and you had to get air fresheners, and she definitely didn’t like how often they broke down. But Delphine driving a car was the hottest thing she’d ever seen, and maybe she could grow to like cars if Delphine was always doing the driving.

It wasn’t just Delphine’s driving that made Cosima like the car either; it was the feeling the car gave her. Cosima couldn’t be sure if she liked Delphine’s car because it was nice, or if it was because it was Delphine’s, but either way, she felt at home in it.

“So, Cosima, tell me, how exactly did you end up on my couch last night? I was a little bit too shocked this morning to really comprehend what you were saying,” Delphine said, turning onto a different street.

“Uh, well, it’s kind of embarrassing actually.”

Delphine grinned. “That just makes me want to hear it more!”

Cosima grinned back, her tongue poking out between her teeth. “Well, like every Friday night, I was at a party.”

“Ah. A party. That’s how it always begins.”

“Shut up.”

“Cheeky girl,” Delphine replied, smirking.

“Do you want me to continue?”

“Yes! Yes, very much. Don’t stop on account of me.”

“Good, okay then.” Cosima began gesturing emphatically. “So, like I said, it started at a party-”

“Wait!” Delphine interjected.

“What?”

“I need to know where you live so I can actually drive you home.”

“Oh. Right. I knew that.” Cosima looked out the window and tried to remember the way home. “Uh, turn left here and just keep driving for a while and I’ll tell you when you need to turn, is that okay?”

“Perfect.” Delphine paused. “Go on?”

“Oh! Yeah. So I was at a party with Sarah Manning last night, right? And I don’t totally remember what happened, but-”

“Wait – what?”

Cosima stopped gesturing. “What?”

“You don’t remember what happened?”

“Well, not really… I remember getting there and talking to this guy, Chad, and then I left to go talk to… Paul, I think his name was? He’s that Sarah girl’s boyfriend. I don’t think he’s too trustworthy though, I mean he’s been seeing Rachel Duncan behind Sarah’s back for quite some time…”

“I don’t know who any of those people are, but I’m going to assume that their identities aren’t of too much importance?”

“Nah, not really. Just know that Sarah is this punk rock ho and I basically only hang out with her to get rides to parties, and that Rachel is this bitchy English girl who’s totally in love with herself.” Cosima paused, trying to resume her story before adding, “oh! And they’re both totally gay for each other. Honestly, I don’t know who Rachel thinks she’s trying to fool by going with Paul.”

“Sarah, probably.”

“Yeah, probably. Anyway, so I went to the party and talked to Paul… and I don’t really remember what happened after that. Maybe I just got hella drunk?”

Delphine grunted. “Maybe.”

“Yeah, probs.” Cosima scratched at her arm. “So anyway, after parties I never feel like going home because a) my house is way too far away to walk to and there’s no way Sarah would leave the party before three in the morning, and b) my parents would be out anyway, so it’s not like I’d get in trouble if I didn’t come home.”

“Your parents, they are gone a lot?”

Cosima shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“That’s a little sad.”

Cosima looked down at her now still hands. “Yeah. I guess so.”

There were a few moments of silence before Delphine spoke. “So instead of going home, you go to…”

“Oh! Yeah, I go to Scott’s. Scott’s this guy I met in freshman year of high school, so we’ve known each other for a while.”

Delphine nodded.

“Oh! Turn left at this light!” Cosima warned.

“Got it,” Delphine replied, putting her turn signal on. “Are you and Scott…. Together?”

“Scott? Oh, god no. He’s great and all, but I’m not interested. He might be, but… no.” Cosima shook her emphatically. “But he and I have known each other forever, and he’s always really nice to me, so it’s not like it’d going to affect our friendship. I just go over to his house when I need a place to crash. And I guess you two live next to each other? Yeah, I must have been really drunk last night.”

“You don’t seem hungover to me.”

“Guess the aspirin must’ve helped then. Thanks, by the way.”

“No problem.”

There was another moment of silence before Cosima spoke. “So, how did you come to be in that house? I don’t think I’ve seen you around before.”

“Oh, non, I just moved in.”

“Nice house, man. Especially considering you’re so young. You’re what, 19? 20?”

“Oui. I’m 19.”

“Cool beans. I’m 17, but I’m turning 18 in March.”

“Mmm, so that means you’re in high school?”

“Yeah. You?”

“I’m studying to get my PhD at UC Berkeley.”

“Dude, that’s what I want to do! What are you majoring in?”

“Host-parasite relationships,” Delphine said. Cosima nodded excitedly. “Do you know what you want to major in yet?”

“Oh, yeah, I want to do evo devo.”

Delphine paused for a minute. “That’s… Evolutionary development! Oui?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s just what we call it here. Sorry.”

“Non, no problem Cosima.”

Cosima grinned down at her hands in her lap. Dammit, this girl is really, really fucking cute. “So, uh, what’s up with you? How’d you get such a great house?”

“Oh, eh,” Delphine said, pausing. “My friends and I are… renting it out. But they’re visiting France right now. They should be back soon.”

Cosima could tell something was off about the explanation Delphine had given her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She shrugged it off as how English wasn’t Delphine’s first language and scratched her arm.

“Oh, uh, turn right here!” Cosima pointed out, pointing wildly at a stop sign. Delphine complied, smiling, turning onto the street.

“We’re almost there,” Cosima commented.

Delphine’s smile dampened a bit, nodding. Cosima turned her in the direction of her house, instructing her to turn at various points on roads until finally, they reached Cosima’s house.

“So.” Cosima stared down at her hands, not wanting to leave but not wanting to be rude and stay.

“So,” Delphine replied, slowly turning her keys in the ignition to stop the engine.

“This is my stop.”

“Indeed it is.”

Cosima scratched her arm again.

Delphine frowned. “Why do you keep doing that?”

“Huh?” Cosima asked, her head snapping up to look Delphine in the eye. “Doing what?”

“Scratching at your arm,” Delphine said, mimicking Cosima’s motions.

Cosima looked down at her arm, which was now red and irritated. “Hmm, that’s weird. Maybe I ate something?”

Delphine was still frowning. “Maybe.”

There was a moment of silence before Cosima spoke. “Well, I should probably get going.”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks for the ride!” Cosima said, opening the car door.

“You’re welcome!”

Cosima climbed out of the car, spending the most possible time a human being ever could closing the door. And then –

It was shut.

Delphine hadn’t stopped her. Delphine hadn’t said anything at all. Guess she doesn’t like you as much as you thought, huh, Niehaus?

Guess not.

Cosima turned away from the car and started to walk towards her house.

“Cosima – wait!” Delphine’s voice sounded from behind her, and she heard a car door closing. She turned to face her.

“Uh, I was wondering…” Delphine paused, her face red. “Could I get your number? Just in case you’re ever in the neighbourhood again and you need a place to stay. Besides Scott’s house, of course.”

Cosima grinned, her tongue poking out between her teeth. “Yeah! Sure. Could I have yours?”

“Oui! Oui, of course.”

Cosima jogged back over to where Delphine was standing and exchanged her phone for Delphine’s. She typed her number into the blonde’s phone and stared back up when she had finished. She noticed that Delphine paused for a second before entering something into her phone. She thought for a second that maybe Delphine wasn’t going to give out her number, but when Cosima received her phone back, she found a 415 number followed by a name.

Delphine Beraud.


	4. Chapter 4

Cosima was still smiling when she walked into her house. She almost felt like humming, which was not like Cosima at all. She skipped into the kitchen and hopped up onto the counter, almost beginning to hum ‘Dead,’ before a ringing cellphone interrupted her. Pulling it out of her pocket, she was surprised to find Scott on the other end.

“Hey, Scott!” she said, tucking her phone between her ear and her shoulder and opening up a cabinet.

“Cos! Where’ve you been? I was looking for you.” Scott sounded about as nervous as he had the first time they’d met, when he was convinced that she was going to stuff him into the toilet like all the other kids had been doing.

“Hm? What do you mean?” She fumbled around in the cabinet for a while before finding a bottle of what looked like oregano. “Where were you looking for me?” She stuck her hand down a crack in the counter and brought up a ripped piece of paper. Pouring some of the contents of the oregano bottle onto the paper and rolling it into a cylinder, she brought it up to her mouth and pulled out a lighter.

“Well, uh, you weren’t at my house last night? Remember, we were planning to work on the science project later today…”

“Shit, I totally forgot! But you’ll totally laugh when I tell you what actually happened last night, kay? You ready?”

Cosima heard Scott sigh on the other end as she brought the lighter up to the joint. “Yeah, sure. What happened?”

“Okay, so last night I went over to crash on your couch and apparently you have this super hot neighbour, right? She just moved in, do you know her?” 

“The blonde girl?”

“Yeah! That one.” Cosima hopped off the counter and started walking around her living room.

Scott whistled. “Oh yeah, I definitely know her.”

“So anyway, last night I accidentally snuck into her house and not yours, wait, you’re still allergic to cats, right?”

“Yeah… what does that have to do with-”

“So I went in, yeah? And she made me breakfast and drove me home and gave me her number and goddamn, she is cute, just – woah. And have you seen her eyes? Or her hair? Dude, she’s insanely attractive.”

Cosima heard Scott sigh again. “That’s great Cos, but you’re coming over, right?”

“Oh, right! Uh, let me finish my joint and get ready first, okay?”

Scott started groaning on the other end. “Fine, but if you aren’t over in an hour I’m starting without you.”

“Cool, I’ll be there.” Cosima almost hung up before adding, “but, uh, make it an hour and half instead. You know I’m always late.”

“I know. Bye.”

“See you then.” Cosima pressed ‘end call’ on her phone and shoved it back in her pocket, reaching for the remote. She pressed the power button and sank down onto the couch, closing her eyes and listening absently to the news.

~

By the time Cosima had finished her joint, she felt wonderfully calm. Her head was finally clear of all the thoughts and ideas bouncing around, and she could relax. The only problem was that she was hungry. Really hungry, actually. Starving.

She forced herself off the couch and over to the pantry to find something deliciously unhealthy to eat. Eventually, she settled on Cheetos and a box of Twinkies, feeling violently American. The only thing that could make her more stereotypical was to go out and start protesting gay marriage, firing shotguns into the woods, and making a deep-fried bacon/donut hamburger. She shuddered at the thought.

Plopping herself back down on the couch, she turned up the volume on the TV and opened up the packages on her lap. She threw Cheetos in her mouth as the reporter on the news rambled on about some dumbass teenagers who started a fire in Texas, and that dickwad Aldous Leekie fucking more shit up with his experiments.

Aldous Leekie was the king of fucking up, in Cosima’s mind. So much so that Cosima and her dad even had a running joke about how they would rather have Lord Voldemort running the country than him. Right now the reporter was talking about how one of his partners had allegedly died in a lab fire the other day because of an exploded experiment. Something Duncan? Cosima couldn’t hear over the crunching of her chips.

When she had finished the bag of Cheetos, she moved on to the box of Twinkies and started sucking out the cream filling. This continued until she had eaten half the box, and she was starting to feel guilty. Her mom loved Twinkies, and Cosima was fairly sure the box had been bought the previous day. She made a mental note to herself to buy another box on her way home from Scott’s.

Shit! She had to be at Scott’s house in twenty minutes! Cosima sunk back into the couch and groaned. Scott was going to be so pissed.

She pushed herself off the couch and up the stairs into her room. It was a mess, as always, and clothes were strewn everywhere. Cosima even saw a black tank top hanging off her ceiling fan. Climbing up onto a chair, Cosima pulled the top off her fan and sniffed it. It seemed fairly clean, and there were no stains on it, so she thought that would be good enough. She pulled off her weed-scented My Chemical Romance tee that she’d gotten at a concert a few years back and pulled on the tank top. She dropped to the floor to find a pair of jeans that didn’t have mud on the cuffs, and searched for a good two minutes before finding one. She squeezed herself into a pair and headed to her bathroom.

Cosima walked into the bathroom, cringing at her hair in the mirror. Sometimes she thought of changing it. Shaving it off? Dreadlocks? She had no idea. Cosima grabbed her hairbrush off the counter and began brushing her hair, wincing every time she hit a knot. When she had pulled out at least half her hair, she decided to just give up and put it in a ponytail.

Cosima sighed. “Well that was taxing.” She stomped down the stairs to the kitchen, opening up the fridge and looking through. Milk, cheese, jelly, ketchup… ugh, don’t we have anything to eat? She closed the fridge, disappointed. Turning around to look at the pantry, she heard the lock on her door click.

Fuck, she thought, running over to the couch. Who the fuck is that?

“Scott? Is that you?”

No reply.

“Fuck!” Cosima ducked under the couch, hidden from the sight of anyone who would walk through that door. She looked around frantically for something to defend herself with, finding only the TV remote on the ground and her mom’s favourite mug lying on the coffee table. She grabbed the mug and crouched behind the couch in silence, waiting for another sound.

Cosima could faintly make out two people talking in hushed tones, though she couldn’t imagine what about. Clutching the remote, she crawled further behind the couch and prepared to spring out at whoever was at her door.

The lock clicked again and Cosima braced herself to seriously injure this person. With a groan, the door opened and Cosima popped out from behind the couch, screaming and running to the door, mug in hand.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

The woman at the door threw her hands up and screamed back at Cosima. “AAAAAAAAAAH!”

Cosima skidded on the floor, confused. “MOM?”

Cosima’s mother clutched at her neck and stopped screaming. “Cosima?”

Shit. Mom. Not a murderer. Cosima lowered the mug from above her head and looked at her mother. “What are you doing back so early?”

“Goddammit, Cosima!” her mother said, looking thoroughly terrified. “I need to sit down.” Cosima’s mother walked over to the couch and plopped herself down, breathing heavily. “What in god’s name possessed you to do that?”

“Uh, I kind of thought you were a murderer?”

“Why the hell would you think that?” she asked, looking at Cosima like she had tried to kill her – which, to be fair, she kind of had, but still.

Cosima looked at her mother. Small, slim, and gaining on fifty years old, her mom hardly fit the murder-y description.

“Well I didn’t think you’d be back until tomorrow… Didn’t you say Sunday?”

“Well, yes, we did, but something came up.”

“Something?”

“Yes, that’s actually what we meant to speak to you about.”

“Speak to me?” Cosima was starting to get suspicious. The last time her parents ‘spoke to her about something’ they gave her the talk, and she was traumatised for life.

“Michael! Get in here,” Cosima’s mom yelled. Cosima heard her dad mumble something from outside, but she couldn’t have cared less what he had said.

“What? I’m busy unloading the car for the party, Karen,” he replied as he walked through the door.

Cosima looked at her mom. “Party? That’s all you wanted to tell me? That you guys are going to a party sometime soon?”

Cosima could practically see the daggers that her mom was shooting at her dad before she turned to her daughter. “Well, you see, you know how I got promoted the other day?”

“Yeah, now you’re some bigwig at the company, right?”

“That’s right. Well, one of my bosses invited us all to a company party tomorrow night. Won’t that be fun?”

Cosima saw her dad shift his weight and look at her helplessly. “It could be,” she began. “Depends on who else is invited. What aren’t you telling me?”

Cosima’s mom turned to give a look to her dad, prompting him to take over the conversation.

“Well,” he began, “see, uh, it’s not someone we particularly like.”

Cosima smirked. “What, you’re not going to tell me it’s that Leekie guy, right?”

Her parents exchanged glances.

“Oh my god, it’s Leekie! We have to go to a party with Leekie? You’re kidding me, right? Honestly?” She glanced back and forth between her parents. “Dad, you can’t honestly approve of this, can you? Leekie? The guy we both hate?”

Her mother tried to amend. “Well, see honey, it’s not that bad, it’s only one night and-”

“But we hate him! How can you just blindly follow along with this? Are you forgetting how much he’s screwed up in the past couple years?”

“Sweetie, it’s not his fault, honestly he’s just been trying to do the best he can-”

“Mom, people have died because of him! Lab explosions, cancer-”

“ENOUGH!”

Cosima quieted. Her mom never yelled.

“Now you listen here and you listen good,” her mom said, a quiet rage in her voice. “You are going to come to this party and be polite, whether you like it or not. The minute we leave you can have your opinions and express them, that’s fine by me, but from seven to eleven at night, you are going to have nothing but good things to say about Aldous Leekie. Is that understood?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

Cosima stared down at her feet. “I’m going to Scott’s to work on a project. Bye.” She headed towards the door.

“Cosima, wait,” her dad said, trying to stop her from leaving angry.

“I got to go. Bye.”

The echo of a slamming door rang throughout the neighbourhood.


	5. Chapter 5

Cosima was fuming.

Leekie? Aldous Leekie? Her parents were going to make her attend a party with Aldous Leekie and not let her insult him? She hated him with a burning passion – and they knew that! What was worse is that they hated him too, and here they were, sucking up to him and going to parties like they were friends or something? Just because her mother happened to work for the same company that funded Leekie didn’t mean that she should have to go to parties with him!

Except it did. Cosima sighed and paused to look around. She was at least a few miles away from where Scott lived and was dead tired, but she didn’t want to call him and have him pick her up. Besides, the fresh air would be good for her, right?

Wrong. By the time she had reached Scott’s neighbourhood she was just about ready to drop dead. Her legs were burning and the aspirin that Delphine had started to wear off, meaning that her headache was coming back. To top all of that off, her arm had started to break out into a full-blown rash – andshe was cold. She was really, really cold. She was seriously rethinking not grabbing a sweater or something before leaving the house.

At any rate, it was too late to go back now. Scott would be expecting her any minute and he’d kill her if she were any later than she already was. By the time she reached his house and approached his door, she was thankful not to have to knock. Scott pulled the door open, a disapproving frown on his face.

“Cos.”

“Shit, dude, I’m so sorry-”

He rolled his eyes. “Just get in here already.”

Cosima frowned. Scott wasn’t usually this moody, was he? “Scott, what happened?”

He waved his hands like it was nothing.

“Dude, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing happened.”

Cosima turned her head to the side. “Bullshit.”

“No, no, it’s just…”

“What?”

Scott stared down at his hands. “I just… well, uh….” He scratched at his head. “I’m moving. So now I don’t get to finish the school year here.”

“Wait, really?”

Scott nodded. 

“Dude, that sucks! Why are you moving?”

He shrugged. “My parents are getting a divorce.”

“Wait - what?” Cosima was a little shocked. Scott’s parents always seemed so good for each other.

“Yeah,” Scott replied, still looking down.

“Why?”

Scott took a deep breath.

“I mean,” Cosima edited, “if you wanna tell me. Don’t do anything you aren’t comfortable with.”

“Nah, nah, that’s okay. Uhm, my dad. He cheated. Some blonde at the 7-11.” Scott was still staring down at his shoes, hands now in his pockets.

“Dude,” Cosima said, moving toward him to put a hand on his shoulder, “that sucks. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. It kinda does. Anyway, uh, my dad gets the house, so my mom and I have to move out.”

Cosima stared down at her shoes. She wasn’t good at the whole ‘comforting people’ thing. She cleared her throat. “Do you, uh, want to get started on the science project?”

Scott cleared his throat too. Cosima thought she saw him wipe away a tear too, but she didn’t say anything.

“Yeah, yeah, that sounds good. Shall we?”

“Dork,” Cosima said, trying to lighten the mood. Scott grinned down at her, and proceeded to run up the stairs. Cosima followed, though less eagerly.

He turned around once he reached the top of the stairs, looking down at Cosima, still stuck on the second step. “Come on, Cos. Are you even trying?”

Cosima groaned and pulled herself up to the third step using the railing. “No.”

Scott sighed. “Cooooos, come on.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.”

“Should I just set up the experiment?”

Cosima sighed. “No.” She was hoping to put off the project as long as possible, but seeing as she would have to do it anyway, why bother procrastinating? Usually, she would love to do science, but now she’d much rather be talking about Delphine.

Delphine.

Cosima idly wondered what she was doing at the moment. Probably just sitting around being cute. Or maybe doing college work, or talking to the friends she’d rented a house with, or feeding her cat? It struck Cosima that she didn’t know much about Delphine.

No shit Sherlock, you’ve only known her since this morning. How could you know anything about her?

Cosima internally punched herself. Sometimes she really hated being logical. She didn’t want to be logical and do research and experiments and science – she wanted to talk to Delphine. Was it too early to call?

“Cosima, are you coming? Or do I have to start without you?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m coming.” Cosima abandoned her thoughts about calling Delphine and raced up the stairs into Scott’s bedroom.

Well, it wasn’t really his bedroom. He got one room in the house, and this was it, but he didn’t really use it to sleep in. Scott had a little hallway off to the side that led to his bathroom with hooks and such that he was supposed to use purely as a closet, but he’d paid his dad to take out the floor and put in memory foam like from a mattress so he could sleep in the hallway. His actual room was designated for something far more important that sleeping and leisure – science.

Scott loved science about as much as Cosima did.

Cosima hopped up onto his desk and looked across the room to where Scott was inspecting something under his microscope.

“Scott?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you believe in love at first sight?”

“What?” He looked up from his microscope.

“Or, you know, soulmates?”

Scott looked confused. “What?”

Cosima sighed. “Two people meant for each other and only each other forever and ever?”

“Like true love?”

“Yeah. Yeah, like true love.”

“Well, love is just chemicals in the brain, Cos. You know that. And I don’t know, love can be kind of fleeting-”

“No, but love that lasts forever. Like if you were to keep making that chemical to keep a person in love forever.”

“Well that’s highly impractical. You know that overdoses of ‘love’ can cause insanity, hallucinations-”

Cosima sighed again. “No, dude, like two people just knowing that they were meant to be with each other from the second they met.”

Scott shrugged. “I guess it’s possible. Highly unlikely, though.”

Cosima shook her head. “I guess I knew better than to ask you. I mean, you’re aro, it’s not as if you would give me too much advice.”

Scott nodded, eye still against his microscope lens. “True. You gonna help me or what?”

“Do I have to? Why can’t you just do it all?”

Scott looked up from the microscope. “What do I get in return if I do?”

“How ‘bout you get to have sex?”

“….”

“With yourself.”

Cosima smiled the cheeky grin that Scott was all too used to. He smiled back at her, not too sure how to respond.

“Cool,” he replied eventually.

Cosima shook her head. “Dork.”

~ 

“Scoooott,” Cosima whined.

Scott looked up from his microscope to stare at Cosima. “What?”

“I’m bored.” She collapsed back onto the table she was sitting on, lying down.

Scott returned to his microscope. “You could always help, you know.”

“Yeah, but that takes effort. I’m bored.” Cosima scratched at her arm. “I don’t want to work on a boring project on- what’s it about?”

“Cells. Mitosis and stuff.”

“Yeah, that. If I’m gonna be doing science, I’d rather do it on my own time. It’s not like I hate science – just science class. You know?”

Scott still didn’t look up from the microscope. “You’re preaching to the choir, Cos. Now are you gonna do any work or not?”

She sighed. “No, not really. Can I take it home and work on it later?”

Scott was quiet for a moment. “Yeah, sure. Makes no difference to me. Just make sure you have it done, okay? It’s due next Monday.”

“Yeah, I got it. What do I have to do?”

“Well see you just-” He paused to get papers from in his desk. “Find this-” Fumbling. “And then you-” More fumbling.

“You know what, I think I’ll just email you later about it, ‘kay?”

Scott looked a little relieved at this. This way he wouldn’t have to destroy the ‘order’ on his desk and find the papers about the project. “O-okay. Cool. See you later?”

“Yup. I’m gonna go now.”

Scott smirked at her. “Delphine?”

Blushing, Cosima tried to defend herself. “No! What? Nooooo, Scott, I’ve just met her; I mean I just – yeah.” She gave up trying to hide it. “Delphine.”

“Thought so,” he replied, nodding. “Have fun then, or whatever.”

Cosima rushed out of his room, staring down at her shoes and trying to hide her embarrassingly red face from sight.

She raced out of his front door to his yard. All she had to do was find out which house Delphine lived in – which might prove to be harder than she originally thought.

Dammit, all these houses look the same!

Cosima walked over to the house next to Scott’s, standing on her tiptoes so she could see in the window. There was a cat sitting on the ledge, but it was an orange tabby cat and not a black and white one like Delphine’s. How was she ever going to find out which house was hers?

Guess the only option is start knocking on doors.

She knew that Delphine lived in the approximate area, her house was similar to Scott’s, and that she lived on this street, considering that Scott knew who she was. Cosima considered going back inside to ask Scott where he’d seen her, but she decided that seemed too pathetic.

Cosima sighed again, walking away from the house with the orange tabby cat and towards Scott’s other next-door-neighbour’s house. Carefully bringing her fist up to the door, she rapped on the wood. She stood there for a few moments before an old woman holding a baby opened the door.

“Why, hello dear. Can I help you?” The woman looked like she’d never done a bad thing in her life. Cosima smiled. She reminded her a little of her grandmother. Before she had gotten sick, of course.

“No, no, I’m sorry, wrong house.”

“Oh, that’s alright sweetie. Do you want anything? My daughter and her husband are visiting, so I have cookies and lemonade out. I could bring you some if you want-”

“No, no, that’s okay. Thank you though.”

“Okay then, angel. If you need any help you come here, alright?”

“Sure thing ma’am,” Cosima replied, trying to be polite.

The woman smiled at her, and Cosima felt a pang in her chest. This woman was quite possibly the first person to be nice to her in – she couldn’t remember how long. Sure, Scott was polite; they paired up on projects and he let her crash on his couch every week, but they weren’t really friends. It was convenient for them to be friendly, but they weren’t friends. Cosima didn’t really have friends.

Except, maybe, Delphine. Delphine had been nice to her with no ulterior motive. There was nothing Delphine wanted from her, nothing that she had to give her in return.

Cosima turned to shuffle off of this woman’s doorstep and proceed to the next house. She brought her hand up to knock and –

“Cosima?”


	6. Chapter 6

Cosima stared blankly for a few seconds. She brought her hand down to her side, wondering absently what Delphine was doing at the door.

“Delphine?” She hadn’t expected to find her on the second house she tried.

Delphine blinked back at her.

“Cosima?” she repeated. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, uh, well, I err,” she stammered. Shit. She hadn’t thought this through at all. What was she doing here? “I, uh….” Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit. “You know, I was just in the neighbourhood.” She gulped. “And, well, you know, I thought, ‘hey! Wonder what Delphine is doin’ right now?’ and so I just, you know, came by. How are you doing?”

Delphine smiled, blood rushing to her cheeks. “I was just going out for groceries, but honestly I’m a little wiped. I don’t think I would have been able to get much done anyway.”

Cosima shook her hands, protesting. “No! No, I didn’t mean to interrupt, I just, uh, yeah.” She felt blood rush to her cheeks.

“No, I insist, it’s nothing. Would you like to come in?” Her hands motioned Cosima inside, and Cosima had no choice but to comply.

“Sure, I guess, but only for a little while. I should get going soon. I have a, err, prior engagement. Later today. Yeah.”

“Of course, Cosima,” Delphine said, smiling a knowing smile that told Cosima she knew exactly how many prior engagements she didn’t have. Delphine strutted over to the kitchen, using her hips a little more than was absolutely necessary if you asked Cosima, but she wasn’t complaining, and poked around at her pantry. “Would you like anything?”

“Oh, no, I just came by to ask if, uh…” She wracked her brain, trying to think of something, anything, to say. She didn’t usually get this nervous around cute girls. “If you had any plans tomorrow night!” she almost shouted. “I mean, uh, would you like to do something?”

Of course! If she had plans with Delphine tomorrow night, she wouldn’t have to go to the party with Leekie! How had she not thought of that earlier?

Delphine grinned. “You have my phone number, no?”

“Well, yeah, but you never know if it’s gonna work. I thought it might be better to come over and ask in person.”

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint, but I have plans tomorrow night. I’m sorry.”

She honestly did look sorry. She looked like she didn’t really want to go to whatever it was she had to go to and would much rather have spent it with Cosima. Or anywhere else on the planet.

“Oh, no, that’s okay. But you know, even if you don’t want to go with me, you don’t have to go to whatever it is you’re doing tomorrow night…”

Delphine shook her head. “No, I do.”

“But… you’re an adult… no one can make you do anything you don’t want to.”

She looked down at her feet. “Oh, but I really do.”

“No, you don’t.” Cosima stepped closer to her, trying to look her in the eyes. “No one but you can tell you what you have to do.”

She smiled a small smile and took a deep breath. “Cosima, when you grow older, you’re going to learn something. Just because you aren’t a kid anymore once you turn eighteen doesn’t mean people won’t still treat you like one. There will always be adults with power over you, even when you are an adult as well. You still have to listen to your elders and you still have to do what they say because, contrary to popular belief, you are a still beneath them. You will always be beneath them, as long as you both live. And even if somehow you manage to escape that, there are still those with power over you. Those who can do whatever the hell they want to you, pardon my language, and you are powerless to stop them. You might as well be five years old again.”

Cosima was quiet for a few moments. “You could always run away, right? If there truly is no other choice?”

Delphine sighed loudly, as if she had been through this conversation many times. With herself or with others, Cosima couldn’t be sure, but whatever the case, she was tired of the argument. “It isn’t that simple, Cosima.”

“No. It never is.”

There were a few moments of silence before Delphine spoke up.

“I just mean that sometimes you have to do things whether you want to or not. Sometimes those things can guarantee you a future.”

“Yeah.”

Delphine shifted her weight awkwardly.

“Well, you know, I should probably get home. I just came over to, uh, ask you if you were free, and now I should probably get home. I already said that, didn’t I? Yeah, I did. Whatevs, I just, uh, yeah. I’ll get going.” Cosima turned around to face the front door and began walking out until a voice stopped her.

“Wait!”

She rotated on her heels. “Yeah?”

“Uh, how did you get here?”

“I walked?”

“Well, your house is too far away to walk back! Could I, err, maybe drive you?”

“What? No, no, I couldn’t ask that of you.”

“Non, Cosima, you can’t walk back on your own. Please?”

Cosima contemplated letting Delphine drive her back. On one hand she couldn’t keep asking for favours, but on the other hand, she was really tired. “Yeah, that’d be great. I-if it’s not too much trouble, of course.”

“No, not at all. Hang on, go to the door and let me get my keys, okay?”

“Sure thing,” she replied, turning and strolling over to the door. She reached her hand out to grab the door handle, but a vibration in her pocket stopped her. Digging her hand into her pocket and pulling out a pink phone, she slid the top up to find a message from, of all people, Sarah Manning.

oi cos. paul needs to talk to u. can u come over to my house tues?

Cosima furrowed her brow. Sarah Manning didn’t talk to her unless it was to ask for her homework early or to change what time she’d drive her over to their Friday party. She hadn’t gotten a text from Sarah in – well, ever.

Delphine glanced over at Cosima, seeing her confusion and immediately abandoning attempting to find her keys.

“Cosima? What’s wrong?”

“Hmm?” She looked up from her phone, brow unfurrowing and eyes widening. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she began, waving her hands around. “Just Sarah Manning texting me. I didn’t even think she still had my number.” Cosima shrugged it off and stuffed her phone back into her pocket among a crumpled up grade report from what had probably been the beginning of the first semester and a few gum wrappers. Not two seconds after Cosima had put her phone away, it began to vibrate again.

“The fuck?” She stuck her hand back into her pocket to pull out the phone, seeing another text from Sarah.

wait, nm, he says it can wait.

Cosima was more than a little bit tempted to ask what it was that could wait, but with Delphine here she couldn’t risk being rude and scaring her off. She moved to stick her phone in her pocket again when the screen lit up and it vibrated again.

k, sorry, paul says hes got to talk to u in person tues. can u come

Cosima was getting a little fed up with the constant stream of texts, so to shut her up, she quickly ran her fingers along the buttons, typing a quick response that ran something along the lines of, “Whatever. I have to go now though. Talk to you later.”

Delphine looked over at her. “Everything okay?”

“Hmm? Yeah, oh, no, it’s all good. Paul’s got to talk to me on Tuesday.”

“Oh.” Delphine unlocked the front door and stepped outside, motioning for Cosima to follow. “What do you think it’s about?”

“No idea. Sarah is just very strange and completely incomprehensible.”

Delphine just nodded and unlocked her car, opening the door for Cosima to get in. “I think I remember how to get to your house, but if I go the wrong way you’ll have to correct me.”

“Yeah, obvs. Thanks, by the way, I didn’t, you know, mean to just come over for a ride. I really did want to see if you’d do something… Nevermind.”

“No, I know.” Delphine lowered herself into the car and stuck the keys into the ignition. “Honestly, it’s no trouble. You showing up is the biggest encouragement to actually go out and buy groceries I could have.” Delphine gave a small self-deprecating smile before continuing on to say, “I’ve been living off Chinese take-out and Pizza Hut for the last two days.”

Cosima broke out into a loud belly laugh. “No kidding?”

“No,” Delphine replied, shaking her head and giggling slightly. “I do not kid you.”

“Dude, why haven’t you gone out?”

“Well, I was planning to go out Friday and get food, but then I got a little caught up writing an essay, and then it was two in the morning.” 

“Wait, hold up here, you got caught up writing an essay?”

Delphine just nodded.

“At least tell me it was about something interesting, right?”

“Oh, yes. It’s about the, eh, ethics and morality of cloning?”

Cosima furrowed her brow. “Really? Ethics and morality?” That wasn’t a typical essay assigned by a science teacher.

Delphine shrugged. “My teacher is very strange. Mostly, I think he’s just trying to fill some time and keep us interested. He didn’t imply it was that big of a grade, so I’m guessing it’s just a personal interest.”

“Cool teacher.”

Delphine hummed her approval. Cosima’s stomach growled.

“Non, can not be serious, Cosima. Did you not eat at home?” Delphine asked.

“Well, yeah, I mean, duh, it’s me. I eat all the time. But, you know, I may have gotten a teensy tiny bit baked? Munchies, dude. What are you gonna do?”

Delphine laughed and said, “I don’t know, maybe just not get high?”

Cosima gasped in fake horror. “Not get high? Never! But nah, dude, don’t worry. I ate like a crapload of Twink- oh, fuck me!” She sighed and put her head in her hands. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Cosima? What’s wrong?”

Cosima shook her head. “I ate Twinkies.”

“And this is bad because…”

“No, not that, ugh.” Cosima sighed. “It’s not that I at the Twinkies, it’s that I didn’t leave that many left in the box, ugh, now I have to buy more, and ugh.”

“Well, do you have money?”

“Yeah…. I was planning to get some on my way home, but now that you’re driving me-”

“Non! No, no, we could stop at a store easily, Cosima. Remember, I have to pick up some groceries too?”

“Wouldn’t that just slow you down?”

“No, honestly, it’s okay. See, there’s a 7-11 right up ahead I’m sure it’d be easy enough to grab some Twinkies for you and I’ll finally get my milk and eggs and cigarettes.”

“Oh, so you’re a cigarette girl?”

“Mm, yes. Do you smoke?”

“Nah, just pot for me. I’m true to San Fran.” Cosima paused for a second before looking back over to Delphine and adding, “I’m going to get you so baked one day.”

Delphine grinned. “One day,” she agreed. She pulled into a dirty parking lot of what Cosima assumed could only be 7-11, judging from the pay phone in front, (who used payphones anymore?) the group of freshmen trying to be cool, and the faded sign in front. Delphine looked more than a little disgusted, probably trying to figure out how this was the home of the infamous Slurpee.

“Yeah, they taste better than the place looks, promise. Just, don’t go by the back because there are always people trying to hook up back there.”

“Outside a 7-11?”

Cosima shrugged. “Horny teenagers. Honestly, they’d do it anywhere.”

Nodding, Delphine pushed open the door and slung her coat over her arm. She looked over to Cosima, who was grinning like an idiot and practically skipping over to Delphine. Delphine couldn’t help but smile at this girl, even though she thought, no, she knew, she could never like a girl. Not like this, at least.

Together, they walked into the store, Cosima still grinning and Delphine biting her lip to conceal a smile. There was a boy who looked like he couldn’t have given less of a shit to be there working at the counter, picking at appeared to be a scab on the back of his hand. He glanced up briefly at the two of them as they walked in, but deeming them beneath his attention, returned to his scab picking. Delphine immediately headed to the back of the store to the refrigerators where milk and eggs were kept while Cosima ran to the isles of snack foods to search for Twinkies. She found them in a matter of seconds and, content with the price, headed over to the counter.

The boy looked up from his hand to glance at Cosima before sighing and running his fingers through his dark hair. He rolled his eyes and straightened his back before asking in a monotone, “That all?”

Cosima nodded and passed the Twinkies over, turning around at the sound of Delphine’s footsteps behind her. Delphine was carrying a jug of milk, a carton of eggs, a pack of cigarettes, and two candy bars.

“Healthy,” Cosima commented.

Delphine made a face and retorted, “Says the girl holding a box of Twinkies and nothing else.”

“Touché.”

Cosima turned back to the counter, where the boy was holding out her box of Twinkies with the most annoyed expression she’d ever seen, ever, on his face.

“You gonna pay for it or what?”

“Yeah, yeah, calm yourself.” She reached into her pocket to pull out her money and handed it to him, her middle finger stuck up under the counter.

Handing back the change, the boy motioned for Delphine to come forward do the same and Cosima stifled a laugh. The boy looked over, intrigued for a second, before shrugging and proceeding to check out Delphine’s items. He handed them back, along with her credit card, and Delphine turned to face Cosima.

“Brat!” she whispered. Cosima just grinned and walked out of the store with a new bounce in her step. She spun around on her heel to face Delphine’s car only to see in the corner of her eye something utterly revolting.

“Shit!” She grabbed Delphine’s arm and pushed open the door, slinking back into the store. “Fuck! Shit fuck shit!”

Delphine glanced outside the window to try and see what Cosima had, but with no luck. “What? What’s wrong?”

“That’s Scott’s dad,” Cosima mouthed, pointing.

“Are you sure?” she whispered, poking her head out the door trying to get a better look.

“Yes!” She grabbed Delphine’s arm again and pulled her back inside the store, pushing her back up against the wall. “What do we do?

“I don’t know! Does this happen often?”

“Seeing my friend’s dad making out with some random woman outside a 7-11? No, this is kind of a first. Of course it doesn’t happen often! Why do you think I’m freaking out?”

“Okay, okay, calm down. It’s okay. We just have to calmly walk out and not make eye contact until we get into my car. Then, we drive away as quickly as humanly possible and pretend this never happened. Agreed?”

Cosima sighed. “Agreed. On the count of three, we walk out. Okay? One. Two…” Cosima prepared herself to push open the door and pretend not to notice a thing. “Three!” She rammed the door open and practically ran to where Delphine’s car was parked.

Pulling Delphine along, she hardly noticed the gasp coming from beside her when Delphine recognised the woman Scott’s dad was kissing, until –

“Mom?”


	7. Chapter 7

Delphine and Cosima sat in the car for a few minutes; the only sound the humming of the car engine and the breathing of the two. 

“So,” Cosima began.

Delphine sighed. “So.”

“That was your…”

“Mom – No.” She shook her head. “Mother.”

“Oh.”

There was another moment of silence before Cosima spoke up again.

“So, just wondering, is it normal to see her making out with my friend’s dad?”

“No. Well, not technically.”

“…”

“…”

“Want to elaborate on that?”

“I just, it’s complicated. My mother, she – it’s complicated.”

“Well, I’m fairly intelligent, if you hadn’t noticed. I’m sure I could follow along if you’d like to tell me.”

“Well, uh, my father died when I was younger.” She cleared her throat loudly, like she was coughing away the lump you get right before you cry.

“Delphine, I didn’t mean you have to tell me. If it’s too much-”

“Non, no, Cosima. I just, well, I loved my papa, very much. He was always very kind to me. We had a very strong bond. But, when I was nine he died in a car crash.”

“I’m sorry, I had no idea.”

“No, it’s okay. It was nearly ten years ago, Cosima. I’ve moved on. But, my papa, he was good for my mère. She was so wild and eccentric, and without him she could have just gotten up one day and moved to Las Vegas with no, err, warning, I believe the word is?”

“Yeah, ‘warning’ works, obvs.”

“Well, eccentric and wild is good, but without my papa around she had no one to reason with her crazy ideas. We did actually move to Las Vegas overnight.”

“No!”

Delphine nodded solemnly.

“No shit?”

“I give you no shit, Cosima.”

“Woah, dude.”

“Oui. Eventually, she found someone in Las Vegas that she that she seemed to love, and married him. He was very rich, so we didn’t have many problems after that.“ She sighed. "We were very lucky.”

“Well, that’s nice, right? Was he nice?”

Delphine was still staring straight ahead, and with the most serious voice Cosima had ever heard she replied, “He’s a jackass.”

Cosima laughed. “Stone cold!” She paused to look over at Delphine, grinning. “You’re my kind of woman, Beraud.”

Delphine smiled uneasily. Probably, Cosima thought, at the sexual implication to her words. She chided herself and swore she’d never say anything else that might make Delphine uncomfortable.

“Well, it is true, Cosima. He’s a jackass. But I won’t get into that. Anyway, my mother, well, she was happy with this man for quite some time. But, as all good things do, it ended eventually. They fought and fell out of whatever they were in, be it love or just attraction for each other, I’ll never know. It seems predictable enough, now, right? That I went to go live with my crazy mother and the man was never to be seen again? Wrong. Oh, how I wish that had been the case.” 

“Then what happened?”

“Well, even though they weren’t together anymore, he still seemed to care for me. With a father’s a love, or a disgusting old man’s love, whatever the case, he felt sorry for my mère, being poor as she was the day she was born. So he took me in.”

“Wait – what? Didn’t your mom have anything to say about that?”

“No. Mostly, she was just happy to be rid of me.”

“I’m sorry.”

Delphine shook her head but didn’t say anything, probably not trusting herself to speak.

“Uh, what happened next?”

“Nothing. My mother left, and I got to stay with my stepfather. He has a lot of money, so it’s not like it would benefit me to leave.”

“But, dude, wasn’t he a jackass?”

“Oui, still is, in fact.”

“And you don’t leave because…”

“He is paying for my education. Also, the house. I may have lied about having friends to help pay the rent. I can’t leave. As much as I hate to admit it, I need him, Cosima.”

“I’m sorry. That sucks. But, hey, once you’re done with school you can leave, right? Get your own place?”

Delphine nodded, but it didn’t seem like she really believed what Cosima had said. “Your house, it’s on this street, yes?” She gestured towards the road she was about to turn onto. Cosima had a feeling that Delphine already knew where her house was but wanted to change the subject.

“Yeah, yeah it’s this one. Just drop me off in front again.”

Delphine pulled up in front of Cosima’s house and unlocked the door for her. “Goodbye, Cosima.”

“Bye,” Cosima said. She opened the door and began to get out of the car before stopping mid-step and turning around. “Hey, are you sure you can’t hang out on Sunday night?” There was no harm in asking again, just in case, right?

Cosima could see the internal struggle in Delphine’s eyes before finally she frowned and said, “No. I’m sorry, Cosima. Some other time?”

Cosima waved her hands around, “Yeah, sure, of course. Bye, Delphine!” She resumed her walk back up to her house notably less cheerful, but kept a smile on her face anyway. When she reached the door, she turned around to wave goodbye. Delphine met her wave with a smile and a goodbye before backing up her car and driving out of the neighbourhood. Cosima’s smile faded as she opened the door, not at all looking forward to seeing her parents again.

Just as she thought, there they were, waiting for her, on the couch. Her mother forced a smile and patted the spot next to her on the couch. “Come on, Cos. Sit.”

Cosima looked over at her dad with a weary expression, but he just shrugged helplessly. She guessed he had even less control over the situation than she did. She sat down on the couch across from her mother, and she thought she saw the smile on her mother’s face falter for a second before multiplying in strength and looking eerily like someone out of Coraline.

“Cosima,” her mother began, “we know that you dislike Dr. Leekie.”

Cosima snorted. “Really? Did you know that?”

Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw her dad run his finger across his neck as if to say, ‘cut it out,’ but she ignored it as her mother resumed speaking.

“Yes, we actually do. But I’m afraid that for this one night you’re going to have to tough it out and be polite.”

Cosima’s rolled her eyes. “And what exactly constitutes as ‘polite,’ mother?”

“Well, we expect you to speak to him if spoken to, and to either outwardly agree with anything he says to you or ignore it.”

“But what if he says something stupid? Oh wait, that’s everything that comes out of his mouth.”

“If you can’t be polite to him we’ll have to leave you at home.”

“You know, I think I actually prefer that option, maybe you should just leave me here. You know, I’m a cheeky, cheeky girl. You don’t know what I could do next.”

Cosima’s mother took at deep breath and rubbed her temples. “Cosima, I am not in the mood for this right now.”

“Well I’m not in the mood to go and socialise with Doctor Leekie.” She said his name mockingly, her fingers raised in air quotes.

“Cosima, if you can’t be polite to him just go and speak to someone else at the party. I’m sure there will be other kids your age.”

“Mom, I’m seventeen. No other ‘kid my age’ is being forced to go to a party like this.”

“Maybe not, but there will be other teenagers there.”

“Yeah, ones who want to be there! No parent makes their child go places with them that they don’t want to go to after the age of, like, twelve.”

“Yes they do, Cosima.”

“Okay, fine, maybe not twelve, but, sometime after that! I’m old enough to stay home alone, you know.” She sat back in the couch, muttering under her breath, “God knows I do that enough.”

Cosima’s mother raised an eyebrow and put her hand to her ear. “Excuse me, young lady. What did you just say?”

“I said, ‘god knows I do that enough.’” Cosima raised her voice. She hadn’t told her parents off for all of their shit – ever. Maybe, Cosima thought, it was time to do so. “You leave me alone for all these long weekends and trips to Guatemala or some other random-ass place and now suddenly it’s all, ‘oh, Cosima, we can’t leave you alone, that would be bad parenting!’ ‘Bad parenting’ my ass! You leave me alone more than you’re here! I’ve spent the last seven birthday’s alone, and all because of you! My first day of middle school I came home, expecting to find my parents there to comfort me, because I was scared out of my fucking mind, but no! No parents, just a measly fucking note on a post-it saying you’ll be home late! I woke up the day I was going to go get my driver’s license, expecting you to be waiting to drive me to the registration place, but no, no, no! You had to go examine the fucking red-balled Iguana that lives in Saudi Arabia or some shit! I’ve been alone for most of my life, but now suddenly once I’m used to it, you just expect me to do whatever you want? No. You’re out of your minds.” She stood up from the couch, planning to storm out to her room and leaving a silence in her wake, when her mom stood up.

“Cosima Niehaus. You go up to your room right now, young lady.”

Cosima turned around, her mouth open in shock. “What?”

“You heard me. Up. Now.”

“Are you kidding me?” This couldn’t be how they handled things, was it? She couldn’t actually remember – it’d been too long since they’d had a fight, or, any conversation at all, really.

“No, I’m not. Now go up to your room while your father and I decide on a punishment for you.”

“Fine.” Cosima stomped up to her room, slamming the door behind her and muttering, “Bitch,” under her breath.


	8. Chapter 8

There was a knock on the door about an hour later.

Cosima looked over at her door from where she was lying on her bed, throwing her plush model of Schrödinger’s Cat up in the air and catching it just before it hit the ground. “Come in,” she said, hearing her door creak open and her mother walk over to sit next to her on her bed.

“Cosima, honey, I know you’re very angry at us.”

You’re damn right, she thought.

“I just, we’ve decided to only give you a small punishment.”

Oh, joy.

“That is, on one condition.”

Cosima threw her plush up into the air again. “And what would that be?”

“Well, you’re only grounded until tomorrow night – and that still means the usual, no computer, no television, no friends over – if you come to the party and promise to be positive.”

Cosima stopped throwing the plush up in the air and set it down next to her, sitting up. “Wait, really?”

Her mother nodded. “Yes. We’re going to be here to whole weekend, monitoring what you do, though, so don’t even think about getting out of it. We want you to be happy, though. So just be polite, will you?”

“Yeah. Of course I will.” She held up three fingers and put her hand to her chest. “Scout’s honour,” she finished, ignoring the fact that she’d never been a girl scout or anything of the like.

Cosima’s mother raised her eyebrows warily before nodding and patting Cosima’s knee.

“Okay, Cos. I’m trusting you. If you don’t cooperate though, there will be dire consequences. Is that understood?”

“Totes. Completely understood. I got it.”

Cosima’s mother stood up from the bed and walked to the door closing it softly behind her. Cosima could almost hear the relief flooding off of her mother after she left the room. Cosima couldn’t blame her. She was pretty difficult to deal with sometimes. Fortunately, her mother knew her well and knew that she would do pretty much anything to get out of being grounded. A week or two completely cut off from the world and her friends? No thanks. Cosima would rather stab herself in the eye with a pencil.

She sighed. Even though it was only a day, it was a whole day. A whole day without anyone to talk to or be with and nothing to do and nothing that she had to look forward to. She thought she might die of boredom. The only thing to do was… work. And not just any work – homework. Ugh.

She pushed herself off of her bed and walked over to where her backpack was. If she had a whole day with nothing to do she might as well start her project with Scott. Plus, this way, she might get to use a computer, since it was it for school, right?

By the time Cosima had finished her half of the project she was exhausted. The only good thing about doing it was that she’d had something to do and got to use the computer to check the email about what she was supposed to do from Scott. Unfortunately, now that she had finished, it was four in the morning and she had nothing to do for the rest of the day. The only thing she had to look forward to was the party, and that didn’t seem like it would be much fun at all. 

Though, seeing as she was exhausted, it didn’t seem like she’d have too much time to fill anyway. It was already four in the morning, and being as tired as she was, she figured she could sleep through most of the day if she put her mind to it. Then once she woke up she could fill the remaining time with showering, getting dressed, and practicing be nice to jackasses like Leekie and all the people who worked for him.

The only problem was that as soon as she got into bed she found herself wide-awake. Or, not wide-awake exactly, but incapable of sleep. Her mind was racing and thinking about every single thing that could possibly happen at the party. What if Leekie spoke to her? Or what if her mom was right and there were actual teenagers there too? Wouldn’t they all be conservative jackasses or something if they were there? Meeting conservative teenagers was not something she particularly liked doing. It was just too strange.

Slowly – a little too slowly for Cosima’s taste – she drifted into sleep.

~ 

“Cosima!”

Cosima lifted her head, rubbing her eyes. “What.”

Her mother walked into her room, fiddling with an earring and wearing a very expensive looking purple dress. “Wake up, you have an hour to get ready.”

She rubbed her eyes again, sitting up fully and furrowing her brow. “What?”

Her mother sighed. “Mr. Leekie’s party? Remember? You can come to it or you can be grounded for the next two weeks. Which sounds like a better deal?”

“I-I’ll come. I’m gonna go get dressed now.”

“Good.” Her mother stood up and started walking out of her room. “And I want you to wear your nice clothes, okay, sweetie?”

Cosima sat up. “Yeah, sure.” Slipping out of her sheets, she approached her closet. She wasn’t exactly sure what counted as ‘nice,’ but she had a feeling her jeans and red coat weren’t going to cut it. Eventually she settled on a dark red backless dress, tights, and a pair of black flats. That would be nice enough, wouldn’t it?

Within forty minutes, Cosima was dressed, showered, and ready to leave the house. Her parents, however, were not. She thought it was ironic how she, who was kind of always late, was ready when her punctual-or-die parents weren’t yet. Her father was walking around the house anxiously, holding his tie with one hand and a single shoe in the other.

“Has anyone seen my other shoe?” His eyes darted under the sofa and towards his daughter. “Cos? Have you seen it?”

She looked to the front door where his other shoe was sitting, one eyebrow raised. “Dad?”

“Huh?” He followed her eyes with his before finally settling on his other shoe and breathing a sigh of relief. “Thank god. You’re a lifesaver, Cos.”

She stood there; eyebrow still raised and asked, “Is anything wrong? You seem the tiniest bit stressed….”

“Huh? No, no, of course not!” He wiped a bead of sweat off his brow, his face looking awfully pink. “I’m just excited for your mother is all.”

“Uh-huh, yeah. Sure.”

He opened his mouth to say something but thought against it and clomped back upstairs to his room, yelling, “Honey! I found it!” and hearing a, “That’s great sweetie! Now can you zip up my dress?” in return.

Cosima shook her head.

There was shuffling upstairs, and a bang as something hit the floor.

“You okay?” Cosima yelled up.

Cosima heard a muffled curse in return from her mother. “Yeah! I just dropped my phone is all.”

There was a pause before Cosima said, “Are you guys ready to go yet?”

“Uh, yeah! Just give us one second, okay?”

Cosima sighed and slunk down onto the couch, closing her eyes. She wasn’t looking forward to this party at all, but her parents were making it very difficult to just get it over and done with.

Her mother rushed down the stairs, as if suddenly remembering there was a time crunch. She held the hem of her dress as she ran, looking a little like Cinderella had when she had sprinted down the stairs at the ball, if she had been wearing a simple dress instead of a gown.

“Come on! We gotta go!” Her mother was holding her heels in her palm, looking frantically behind her as she yelled, “Michael! We’re going to be late! Get your ass down here!”

Cosima heard her father shout back down, “I’m coming!” and then a muffled, “Jesus Christ, Karen,” that she hoped for her father’s sake her mother hadn’t heard.

“I heard that!” her mother yelled back. Cosima winced.

“I was kidding honey! Totally kidding…”

Cosima sighed. “Are we going to go or not?”

“Yeah, we are. Michael!”

“What?”

“If you aren’t down here in thirty seconds we’re leaving without you!”

“I’m coming! Just go start the car, okay?”

“Okay!” Her mother jogged towards the door, motioning Cosima outside. “Come on, sweetie, we’re going to be late.”

Cosima nodded and followed her mother dutifully, dreading every second she was going to have to spend at this party.

“Mom?”

“Yes?” She opened the car door and hopped in, waving her hand to tell Cosima to get in the back seat. “What is it?”

Cosima sat down and clicked her seat belt. “How long are we going to be there?”

“I’d think until about ten or eleven. If you have a problem with being there, Cosima, you can always stay home and be grounded until June.”

“Mom, I turn 18 in March. You can’t keep me here after I’m 18 if I decide to move out.”

Her mother sighed. “Fine, you’re grounded until your birthday if you don’t come. Better?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Her mother sighed again and honked the horn loudly, sticking her head out the window and yelling towards the house, “Michael! Get your ass in here!”

Cosima could see her father scrambling around the house through the front window and running outside, his tie hanging loosely around his neck. He shuffled to the passenger seat and closed the door, breathing heavily and fanning his underarms. As soon as the passenger door was shut, her mother backed out of her parking spot and zoomed off on their way to the party.

“Nervous, dad?” Cosima asked.

“Huh?” He lifted his collar and sniffed, shaking his head and pulling a bar of deodorant out of the glove compartment. Applying it, quite generously, if Cosima said so herself, he shook his head. “No, no! I’m not nervous! Excited. Very excited.”

“Well, you sweat a lot for someone who’s just excited.”

“It’s perfectly normal to sweat when excited! I just, uh, I’m meeting your mother’s boss for the very first time tonight. I’ll meet all of her coworkers, actually.” He took another deep breath and closed his eyes. “It’ll be wonderful,” he added, eyes still closed and his head resting back on the seat.

“Honey, stop it.” Her mother took one hand off the wheel to pat her father’s thigh. “It’ll be fine. Honestly, they’re not that difficult.”

“O-oh, I know.” He took another deep breath, eyes still closed and clutching the tube of deodorant tightly. “I’m looking forward to it, really.”

Her mother rolled her eyes at him but didn’t say anything else on the subject.

The only thing more painful in Cosima’s mind than the actual party was the ride to the party. It was painstakingly awkward. Her dad was sweating like a pig the entire time, and her mom spent the entire time either rolling her eyes or checking her lipstick in the rearview mirror. To top that off, she didn’t have her phone to keep her busy, so she was forced to eeither stare out the window or talk to her parents.

For what seemed like hours to Cosima, but was most likely only thirty minutes, they arrived at the DYAD institute, where her mother worked.

“Mom? Shouldn’t they not hold a big company party at the lab?”

“Oh, don’t worry sweetie, there’s a floor specifically for gatherings like this one.” Her mother opened to door, taking a deep breath and stepping out.

“Okay…” Cosima followed suit and exited the car, looking at the building. “Wow. Big.”

Cosima heard her dad wheeze in the background. She turned around to see him pulling on his shirt collar and adjusting his tie nervously.

“You okay, dad?”

“Fine. Absolutely fine.” He looked like he was just about ready to run for the hills. Her mom grabbed his hand, patting it.

“You’ll be fine,” she said, obviously attempting to appear reassuring but sounding distracted instead.

“I-I know that, Karen.” He gulped. “Absolutely fine.”

Cosima rolled her eyes and started walking towards the door, pushing it open to a woosh of air when she arrived. “Fancy,” she muttered to herself.

A man in a tuxedo with a coat on his arm greeted them at the door.

“Why, hello there, Mrs. Niehaus. I assume this is your lovely family?”

Cosima’s mom smiled back at the man and grabbed her daughter’s arm. “Yes. This is my lovely husband, Michael,” she said, pulling him closer to her and leaning her head against his shoulder. He looked about ready to explode with anxiety. “And this is our wonderful daughter, Cosima.” She pulled her closer to her as well, patting her shoulder. “You know, she’s a scientist as well.”

“Oh!” said the man, grinning in a way that let Cosima know he was incredibly tired of pretending to care about his coworker’s families. “That’s wonderful. May I take your coat?”

Cosima’s mother shook her head. “No, that’s quite alright. I think I’m going to go and join the others now.”

“Great! Great, really wonderful.”

The Niehaus’ took off down a long dark hallway to the main room, where the smell of cheese, wine, and expensive perfume was overpowering.

“Cosima,” her mother began, leaning down slightly and pointing her finger, “if you so much as look at any of the alcohol here you will be grounded until you graduate from college. Is that understood?”

“Yes, mom. I got it. Can I go now?” Even though her phone had been taken away, sitting off to the side and thinking about things was better than sitting with her parents and trying not to disagree with any of Dr. Leekie’s employees.

“No, I’m going to go introduce you to my boss.”

“But mom, your boss is Leekie.”

“Yes he is, and you’re going to be nice to him.” She grabbed her daughter by the upper arm and dragged her to where a bald man was talking to another bald man, Doctor Leekie.

“Mr. Leekie! It’s so great to see you here!”

Leekie turned his attention from the bald man to Cosima’s mother and smiled.

“Karen! How lovely you could make it.” He grinned and looked back at Cosima and her dad. “And who are these lovely people you have with you?”

“Oh! This is my husband, Michael.”

“Hello, Michael,” Leekie said, holding out his hand. Cosima’s father just let out a small squeak and slapped his hand into Leekie’s, shuffling off to the bar mere seconds after pulling away.

Her mom laughed anxiously. “He’s just excited to be here,” she explained.

“Obviously.” He turned his attention to Cosima, now. “And who is this lovely lady?”

Cosima fought back the urge to barf.

“This is my daughter, Cosima. Cosima, say hello to Doctor Leekie.”

Cosima grit her teeth and held out her hand. “Hello there, Mr. Leekie. I’m a big fan of your work.” She could almost taste vomit in the back of her throat.

Leekie just laughed. “And how old are you?”

“I’ll be 18 in March.”

“Ah! My stepdaughter is about your age! She’s here, would you like me to get her for you?”

“No, no that’s oka-“

“I’ll be right back.” He turned around and left, in search of his stepdaughter. Cosima sighed.

“Cosima,” her mother started.

“I know, I know. Be polite. It’s not going to help that she’s probably a douchebag.”

“Language!”

“Sorry, sorry. Pretentious,” she corrected. She looked down at her hands and fiddled with her dress. She thought maybe she wouldn’t be as affected by all the douchebaggery happening around her if she couldn’t see it.

“Found her!” Cosima could hear Leekie stepping back to where she and her mother stood. “This is Ms. Cormier.” He attempted the last name in an atrocious accent, causing Cosima to stifle a laugh.

French, Cosima thought. She looked up. I bet she’s nowhere near as hot as -

“Delphine?”


	9. Chapter 9

“Delphine?” Cosima stood there, in shock. Delphine was here. Delphine Beraud was at a DYAD event. No, Delphine Cormier, not Beraud. Delphine Cormier.

Leekie looked over at Delphine. “You know each other?”

She looked down sheepishly. “Y-yes, a little.”

Instead of yelling at her, which she seemed to expect, Leekie smiled and threw up his hands in delight. “That’s great! Why don’t you two go talk?”

“Yeah, that’s a great idea,” Cosima said, eyeing Delphine. “I’d love to talk.”

“Oh, see, I think it would be better to stay here! To speak with our parents, of course,” Delphine countered, her voice startlingly high. “I’d love to meet your mother, Cosima.”

Cosima’s mother smiled over at Delphine. “Oh, what a nice girl! So polite.” She elbowed Cosima and whispered under her breath, “I’d like to see you act a little more like her.”

Cosima rolled her eyes. “Yeah, she’s very polite, mother. You know what? I think a great idea would be to go off and talk about how I could be more like her. Wouldn’t you say that’s a good idea, mom?”

Cosima’s mother opened her mouth to speak, but Leekie cut her off. “Oh, you girls shouldn’t worry about being so polite tonight – it’s a party! Have fun.”

Cosima just nodded and grabbed Delphine’s arm. “That’s a great idea, Mr. Leekie, I’ll see you later!” She marched off to the side of the room with Delphine trailing behind her, hearing laughter and something along the lines of “teenagers, huh?”

Cosima crossed her arms and stared up at Delphine, trying to ignore the fact that a stout man with thinning black hair was shoving cheese into his mouth at an alarming rate directly behind her.

“So, Delphine Cormier. Cormier, huh? Not Beraud.”

“Cosima, I can explain-“

“No, no! I wanted to thrust you!”

“I know, I am so sorry, Cosima I just –“ She stopped speaking suddenly. “You wanted to what?”

Cosima yelled back, “I wanted to trust you, Delphine! Or is the word ‘trust’ too foreign for you to understand it?”

“That is not what you said.”

Cosima’s brow furrowed. “Yes it is. What are you talking about?”

“Well, you said, err, thrust. You wanted to thrust me.” She scratched her neck and looked away, as if it was awkward to say out loud.

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes, I think you did, Cosima.”

“No I didn’t!” Cosima could feel colour rising into her cheeks. Maybe she had said thrust. Damn you, Freudian slips!

“Cosima, I am sure of what you said, you did indeed say thr-“

“No! Stop! No I didn’t. Ugh, I’m mad at you! Can’t we just get back to the conversation? Delphine, why would you even do that?” Cosima could feel her voice softening, even though she was no less angry.

The man who had previously been shoving cheese into his mouth was now staring at the two girls, popping crackers into his mouth instead, as if they were a TV show to be observed.

“Get lost!” Cosima yelled at the man, who jumped up as if he had forgotten they were actually there and shuffled away, ears burning bright red.

Cosima turned back to Delphine and huffed at her. “What kind of person even lies about their last name? What good would it do?”

Delphine stared at her feet. “I didn’t – I, I didn’t…” She took a deep breath. “I didn’t want you to associate me with him. N-no one decent likes him, and you are so great, Cosima. I did not want to be tainted by his name.”

“Oh yeah? Well you’re tainted anyway.” She began to walk away when a hand grabbed her bicep.

“Cosima, what is so bad about it anyway? It’s just a last name! Why does it matter if I am not Delphine Beraud? I’m still me!”

She yanked her arm away from Delphine and turned back to her. “No! No you aren’t! How do I know you weren’t lying about all of that too?”

“Cosima, I wasn’t! I swear!”

“I wanted to trust you, Delphine!”

“You can trust me!”

“You know Leekie! And you lied to me about it! Why would you even lie to me about that? What possible good could come from it, Delphine?” Cosima’s throat burned from screaming, but she couldn’t seem to get herself to stop.

“I don’t want you to look at me like I’m his! Like I’m some sort of spy or copy of him! I dislike him as much as you do, Cosima! Why does this even matter? It is not like I chose him!”

“But you chose to lie to me!” She sighed and cleared her throat. “Not saying who your father was, or telling me you had plans tonight, I knew it was bullshit. That you were hiding something, at least. But I still thought you’d tell me if it was something this big.”

“I would tell you!”

“Obviously not.”

Delphine looked down at her feet again, turning her foot in circles. “I’m sorry, Cosima.”

“Me too.” She looked away, turning to face her mother. “I have to go.” She turned on her heel and stormed back to where her mother was speaking to Dr. Leekie.

“Cosima, wait! Why does this matter so much to you?”

Cosima didn’t answer.

Navigating through the crowd to get to her mother was more difficult than she thought it would be. There were waiters and tall men and women in big puffy dresses and it took her much longer than she would care to admit to finally reach her mom. Her mom and Leekie were talking about something, laughing even, as her dad stood behind them awkwardly sipping his wine. His face lit up at Cosima walking towards them, but quickly darkened when he saw the expression she was wearing.

“Cos?” he began.

“I want to go home,” she said.

He tried to hide his pleasure. “You know, I don’t know if that’s a good idea, we just got here, but if you really need to I guess that’s oka-“

“No, Dad, I really need to go home.”

“Cosima? What’s wrong?”

She ignored his question and tapped her mother’s shoulder, trying not to notice the death stare she gave her when she turned around.

“What is it Cosima, can’t you see I’m speaking to Doctor Leekie?” He words seemed casual enough, but her tone said ‘I’ll murder you in your sleep if you don’t leave right now.’

“I want to go home.”

“Cosima, I thought we established that we weren’t going to go home until the party was over, right?”

Cosima sighed and stared up at the ceiling, trying to keep tears from falling down her cheeks. “Please, mom? I’m just really not feeling good.”

Her mother’s expression softened when she saw the moisture threatening to leak out of her daughter’s eyes. “Okay, honey,” she said. She turned to Leekie. “I’m so sorry Doctor, my daughter isn’t feeling well. I’m afraid I have to go home. Good night.”

Before he even had the chance to reply, the Niehaus’ were out the door and walking towards their car.

“You better have a good reason for this,” said Cosima’s mother, holding her daughters arm tighter than she would have preferred.

Cosima just looked away.


	10. Chapter 10

The car ride back home was silent. Cosima’s father kept his eyes on the road, and the windshield wiper’s movement from side to side was the only noise heard. Cosima wanted to say something to her mother, a ‘sorry,’ or a ‘please don’t ground me for this,’ but she feared if she opened her mouth to speak she would cry.

So they just sat there instead.

When they got home, Cosima’s mother was fuming.

“COSIMA TATIANA NIEHAUS.” There was a long pause before Cosima’s mother continued, much more calmly. “Please tell me you have a good reason for this. Tell me you didn’t drag me out of a very important party for no good reason, because if you did, help me lord. It seems like something you would do, doesn’t it, Michael?” She looked over at Cosima’s dad, who just nodded and mumbled something about needing to check the oven.

Cosima liked to think of herself as an honest person. In fact, she was going to tell her mother the whole story of Delphine Beraud – Cormier, she meant – and who she was. Minus the drinking, of course. She really was. That is, until ‘it seems like something you would do,’ because firstly who says that to their child and secondly what does that even mean? So, like any sane human being would, she lied. “No reason. Didn’t want to be there.”

For a second, Cosima didn’t know if her mom heard her because she didn’t react. For a second, Cosima was okay. It’s the next second that really got her, because what happens in that next second was everything. First her cheek was stinging and then she could see her mom pulling out her hand and she wasn’t sure why she was in pain until she was. Sure. And when she was sure, she was done. She didn’t say a word, she didn’t yell or scream or cry, but simply walked out. Not out of the room or out of the area, but out of the house. She was done.

“Cosima, honey!” she heard her mom yell out, like she was going to apologize. Like there’s any way she could’ve made up for what she did with mere words. But Cosima was gone. Cosima was left and Cosima was out and Cosima was free.

She didn’t know where she was going, exactly. But she knew she was going somewhere.

~

She wasn’t surprised when she ended up at Scott’s house. Whenever anything big happens, she ends up at Scott’s house. His spare key was still in the flower pot and so she walked in, like she always does. It’s almost midnight, so obviously Scott’s mom was still out, drinking to forget her sorrows. Cosima kinda wished she was right there with her.

Cosima yelled out Scott’s name and instead of jumping out of bed with a baseball bat and clinging to Denise, his favorite stuffed animal, like he did the first time Cosima showed up, he just groaned as Cosima walked up the stairs. When she got to the top of the staircase Scott was standing there holding Denise tightly and yawning.

“Cos, it’s almost midnight. You know I have important classes tomorrow. I need to be rested.”

Cosima just rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I have news.”

“Of course you do.” A sigh and an eye roll later, they’re inside his bedroom with Scott under the blankets, reluctantly ready to listen.

“Delphine lied to me. She said her name was Delphine Beraud but it’s not! It’s Delphine Cormier.” There was a pause while Cosima waited for Scott to gasp or raise his eyebrows in shock. He didn’t. “Dude, this is serious. Why aren’t you upset right now? Go on. Be upset for me. I’ll wait.”

Scott yawned before speaking. “I don’t understand why this is such a big deal. It’s just a last name, right? Who cares if she’s Delphine C. or Delphine B.? Tiny details,” he said, closing his eyes.

Cosima waited for five whole seconds trying to restrain herself from hitting him before she gave in to the urge. The result was a satisfying smack and Scott yelling ‘ow!’ “You’re not seriously forgetting? Me? Lies? Secrets? They don’t do well. You know this.”

Scott murmured something quietly and closed his eyes again.

“Scott!” she yelled, hitting him harder this time. “Are you kidding me? I hate lies! You know this! You don’t remember why I hate lies? It’s a pretty fucking big reason!”

Scott didn’t move from his spot, but Cosima didn’t seem to care.

“Remember that time like a year ago I found out something huge about myself? DO YOU? LIKE THAT TIME IN AP BIO I FOUND OUT I WAS ADOPTED AND MY PARENTS DIDN’T BOTHER TO TELL ME?”

Scott scrunched up his face. “Oh. Right. That.”

Cosima sighed. “I hate liars.”

“As do I, but at this point you should probably see a therapist about your undying hate for them.”

“Asshole.”

~

Cosima was rudely awoken by Scott’s mother drunkenly making her way in to the house at 4am. At this point, it was too late to go back to sleep anyway, so she pried Scott’s arms off of hers and got out of bed. She nodded to Ms. Smith on her way downstairs, who didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary, anyway.

Eight eggs, three almost-fires, and two hours later, Cosima gave up on making breakfast. Instead, she poured some cereal for Scott and trudged upstairs to wake him up.

“Scott,” she whispered. He didn’t move. “Scoooottt.” She nudged him with her arm and waited a second before yelling in his ear, “SCOOOTTT!” At this, he opened his eyes and frowned.

“Go away.”

“Now that’s what I like to hear in the morning: my best friend telling me to get out of his house.”

Her snark apparently didn’t warrant a response, because he just rolled over and pulled the blanket over his head.

“Fine,” she said, walking away from the bed. “I guess you won’t get any bacon. Such a shame.”

At the word ‘bacon’ Scott sat straight up in bed and jumped off. “I’m up! I’m up I’m up I’m up!”

Cosima just laughed and raced him down the stairs, where she knew she’d be in very big trouble for not having any bacon.

When he saw nothing but cereal, she got called a few profane words and punched in the arm, but nothing she wasn’t expecting. They sat, ate breakfast, copied each other’s homework for the day, and by 7:30 they were ready to get out the door.

The only problem was when they opened the door, none other than Delphine Cormier was standing outside Scott’s door with a pan of meatloaf.


End file.
